The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

PAOLO SACCHI 385
such a precise name as “Parthians” cannot be used as a code for another
people. At least, I do not know of any similar example.
The other way to explain BP’s absence from Qumran is that of interpreting
it as being different from the Qumran theology. The true precursor
of this line of interpretation is Nickelsburg who, in a review of
Milik, explained BP‘s absence from Qumran with the fact that it was
written by a group external to Qumran. He clearly proposed in 1981 an
early date for BP: “…the Parables are a Jewish writing produced around
the turn of the era.” 23 At the same time Knibb was explaining that if BP
was not present at Qumran, then it could not be Essene, but must be
Enochic. 24 Since he considered the allusion to the Parthians a pure literary
topos, he dated the work to the end of the first century C.E. on the
basis of a comparison with the three great apocalypses of that period. He
was left, however, with the problem of explaining why the author made
no mention of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. The explanation
he gives is that the sense of desperation that pervades the entire work
makes sense precisely because the book was written after 70 C.E. At any
rate, the observation that emerged from the works of Nickelsburg and
Knibb was destined to be developed further in the future: this was not a
question that regarded only BP, but rather all of the history of Essenism
and Enochism, to which we shall return below.
Bampfylde 25 has followed Knibb’s method of literary comparisons in
order to establish the best date for BP. Bampfylde’s results, however, are
quite different. Like Knibb he does not assign much importance to the
fact that BP is missing from the Qumran library and he gives a rather
vague interpretation of the Parthian invasion. He does find some stylistic
parallels, though, with the Psalms of Solomon and as a consequence fixes the
date at 51–50 B.C.E. Black 26 also agrees with this dating, thus returning
to Charles’s positions.
The work of Reddish 27 can be seen as drawing this period of the
research on BP to a close; summarizing the various positions of the most
recent scholarship, he comes to the conclusion that BP must have been
(Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979). The author thinks that the most probable date
is during the time of Caligula (37–41 C.E.), because this seems to him the best period
for explaining the work in terms of a reaction against emperor worship (165–66).
23. George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 223.
24. Cf. Knibb, “The Date.”
25. Bampfylde, “The Similitudes of Enoch,” 9–31.
26. Matthew Black, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch; A New English Edition (Leiden: Brill,
1985), 187–188.
27. Mitchell G. Reddish, Apocalyptic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990).